Gotta love the heat!

Yet another week has flown by! February has arrived, and it is promising to be a hot one! But I´ve already survived an Alabama AND Brazil summer, so I guess one more month of heat I can handle :)

This week I have been pretty sick, but nothing too serious. I just have a really annoying cough and  headaches. I´m pretty sure it´s just a cold, but it´s been over a week now and it´s not letting up! My companion keeps telling me he´s pretty sure I have lepracy haha. But cough drops and ibuprofen work wonders so we still worked hard this week! Hopefully I´ll get better this week.

So Carlos´ baptism was finally authorized! To be honest, it didn´t even need to be authorized, but the elders that were here before thought a letter had to be sent to the first presidency, and told the man they sent the letter but turns out the letter doesn´t even exist and he could have been baptized like two months ago. Anywho, he will be baptized this week! He has been so anxious waiting for his baptism, so when we finally told him he could be baptized he got sooo happy. He literally has not stopped talking about his baptism ever since! I guess he had a stroke or something a little while ago which affected his brain, and so he´s almost like a little child. But he is so smart! He understands everything we tell him and is the most dilligent person ever. He has been going to church every sunday for 3 months, does visits with the members, helps at service projects and everything! He is basically already a member. Now we just gotta dunk him! So tuesday we have a zone meeting with just our zone. His baptism will be wednesday, because Friday is the temple trip. Friday will be the mission tour in Alegrete with Elder Mazzagardi - the first counselor in the Brazil Area. So we´ve got a full week of fun ahead of us!!!

Unfortunately, no other investigators came to church this Sunday. It´s pretty frustrating sometimes, because it seems like nobody in our area wants to commit to anything. They accept the message and enjoy it and all, but when it comes to DOING something, they back out. I dunno if it´s cause they´re scared or just straight up lazy, but it makes our work a lot harder. But we did have about 10 less actives come to church this week, and one recieved a calling! So that was a good sign. We still have a few investigators with lots of potential, but it looks like we´ll really have to hunt the prepared ones out of the nooks and crannies of our area! 

All the members are getting so excited to meet Mom and Dad! I hope you´re ready to eat, because I´ve got huge lunches set up for us every day, and I´m sure every person we visit will just be stuffing you with food. I absolutely cannot wait, I can´t believe it´s coming up so soon! 

Well, I love you all! I hope you have a fantastic week, and enjoy that cold weather! Cause I promise you´d prefer it to the weather down here! Haha!

Love,

Elder Weight

P.S. I haven´t taken any recent pictures, but here´s an old one of what happened to my first pair of shoes! They lived a good life, but didn´t quite last the journey. 

I haven´t taken any recent pictures, but here´s an old one of what happened to my first pair of shoes! They lived a good life, but didn´t quite last the journey. 

The beginning of the end

Dear family and friends,

Well this will be short again, sorry about that! Today is transfers so we have to rush down to the bus station now. But I am well, the work is going great! It has been really really hot lately, but it´s all good, we deal with it. We are working with quite a few investigators now and hopefully we will have some baptisms soon! 

I will be staying in this area with my comp, elder mendes until the end! Pretty strange to be starting my last transfer, but I am excited. Elder Snow who was living with us was transferred to Santa Maria, and Elder Ayres, the ex assistant will be living with us these last few weeks. I am excited to work real hard these last weeks, and find those miracles that are waiting for me! I love missionary work, it truly is the greatest. I continue to learn so much, and I do not regret the choice I made to serve a mission. God lives and love you so much! CTR! I love you!

Elder Weight

Short Update

Friends and family,

Another week has past and what a great week it was! The weather calmed itself down a bit, so we finally were able to get some good solid work done. There aren´t a whole lot of news though. We spend a lot of our time contacting lots of our contacts and referrals, finding and cutting our investiagors, and hunting out the less active members! 

Carlos is progressing well, we´re just waiting on a response from president parrela. We never were able to get back in contact with the two youth who were basically ready to be baptized when we got here. They like disappeared, and don´t answer their phones anymore. Liziane, who is the single mom with five kids hasn´t really been progressing. she´s usually really busy taking care of all her kids, so maybe right now isn´t her hour. But she is great. This week we found a man who was going to church faithfully and wanted to be baptized about a year ago, but his wife didn´t want to get married nor go to church, so he stopped going to church. Well, a few weeks ago his wife passed away and we will take advantage. Haha that sounds terrible, but he is a really good guy and likes the church a lot. So hopefully he can be baptized soon! We had a family night with Sister Loide and her family and they are doing great. She is going to take a lawyer to divorce her first husband this month so that she can be married as soon as possible. Her and all her family came to church on Sunday and it was so great to see them here! They´re so sweet and wonderful to us and I´m excited for you to meet them!

Well, I´m short on time, but I really don´t have much to say! I love being a missionary, I love this gospel and I have no doubt these things are true. I have helped other people come unto the truth, but the most important soul I have converted is my own. Before my mission I really believed, but now I truly know! God lives and loves us all. Through the gospel plan we can be happy in this life and after as well. Continue to choose the right, because there is nothing more important in this life than obedience to the gospel. I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week! Until next monday!

Love,

Elder Weight

Christmas Pics

Coke and pastels - can´t get much better than this.

Nothing like some Christmas morning futebol!

You could say he was pretty excited to open his presents

eah, we got pretty festive down here in Uruguaiana

My 2014 Christmas family.

Christmas stocking packages!

2015!?!

Happy New Year to all of you! If you are getting this/reading this email, know that I am so appreciative of you in my life! I love you and hope you had/have a great new year! This has to have been one of the strangest new year´s in my life. Ever since I was little I always planned on serving a mission from 2013-2015 and it always felt so far away. So when I realized on Wednesday night 2015 had ACTUALLY arrived, I almost didn´t believe it. I think I still don´t believe I´ll actually be coming home this year and get back to real life. It´s a feeling I really don´t know how to explain. So for now I´ll try to forget about that and focus on the work!

This week was a bit difficult with all the new years festivities. A lot of people were traveling or partying or sleeping or getting drunk which makes out for depressed missionaries. But we did find some new investigators luckily, and visited a lot of the members. I think we finally got to know every active member now, so that´s nice. This week we met a single mom with 5 kids and she was really open to the message. Her mother-in-law (well, ex) is a member of another ward here, but she had never met with the missionaries! Her kids are all younger, but they are so dang cute! We were only able to teach her 2 times until now, but both lessons have been great. She has begun reading the book of mormon already and she is great! We´ll do a better follow up this week to see. We found a few others as well, but we´ll have to wait and see this week.

New Years was pretty great as well! We got together with some other elders, made a bunch of food, played games, and just had a good time together! There were tons of fireworks at midnight here and continued all night long. People are still lighting them off until today! Made it a little hard to get a little bit of sleep, but what do you do about that, eh?

Well, sorry this is so short, but I have to get going! Know that I love you and think about you always! Y'all are so important in my life and I´m so lucky to have you. I really don´t know where I´d be without you, definitely not here on my mission. Have a wonderful week and a wonderful new year! I hope you all made some good goals. I heard a good story this week I´d like to share. A man was teaching a class at church and grabbed a jar and called it life. He got a bunch of big rocks and stuck them in the jar and asked the kids if the jar was full. They responded yes. Then he grabbed a bunch of gravel and put it in the jar to fit inbetween the cracks. He asked again - is it full? They responded kinda of a yes. Then he put some sand in the jar and filled it to the top and asked - is it full? And finally filled the rest of the jar to the top with water and asked - is it full now? Then he asked the kids - what can we learn from this. The kids responded - even when we think we are doing everything in our lives, we can always fill it with more things to be more productive. The man then responded - NO! You missed the whole point. We have to place the big rocks in our lives first, or we will never be able to fit them in. 

So at the beginning of this year ask yourself - what are the big rocks in my life and am I putting them first? And remember that the biggest rock of every one of us should be the gospel. "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added upon you" As you make goals for this coming year, make sure you make the big rocks, and the small rocks small rocks. I love you all!!! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Weight

Christmas in the new area!

Hello friends and family!!! Sorry I didn´t have the chance to write last week, but we didn´t have much time with the computer. But I hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas! It was hard to be away from all of you, but next year will be the greatest Christmas yet! 

So my new area is called Setembrino, and it´s basically at the very edge of the city here in Uruguiana. The area is pretty small, but we live about a 40 minute walk from our area. But I guess it´ll help me to stay skinny for when I get home, right?? Haha it has been really hot lately, but with lots of rain too, so that has been nice. Friday night there was a ginormous storm with tons of lightning and wind and rain and hail and everything! The power went out and everything, it was actually pretty cool. We took some videos I´ll have to show you someday. Anyway, my new area pretty great. It´s really, really poor, but the people are very humble and receptive here. There are a lot of good members as well, and a nice chapel close to the area. There are a ton of recent converts as well, but most of them are already inactive. So we are trying to search them out, as well as finding a lot of new investigators. The elders who were here before left us a few good investigators as well. We are teaching two youth who are liking the church a lot. They were supposed to be baptized the week we got here, but their parents ended up not allowing them to be baptized. Then this week the young man´s grandfather died, which was really hard on him. We are going to teach him about the plan of salvation tonight - what a blessing to have the gospel right? I can´t imagine how hard it would be for me to not have the knowledge of this gospel in my life. Families really can be together forever, and that is the greatest piece of knowlege that exists!!! 

Christmas was great as well. It was so wonderful to get to talk to you, and made me even more excited to get home!!! Haha there´s still a lot of work for me to do here, but I am very excited to finally see y'all again. This Chrismtas I realized just how much you all mean to me. I honestly didn´t need all the presents and food and festivities, I just neeeded to be able to talk with you and my Christmas was wonderful. I love you all so much and miss you with all my heart!!! Have a great new year, and I´ll talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder Weight

December 2 Pics

Last day with Júlia! (With the tie she gave me!)

We´re pretty cool.

Last day with Marcos, Graziele and Hector

My adopted family here in Alegrete - Salete, Sue Helen, and Wesley

I'm gonna be a grandfather!!

So on the mission, we have a way of talking that might be confusing to normal folk. For example. Throughout my mission I have killed 2 Elders, I have 3 sons, and I will now become a Grandfather. Haha in other words, I was with two Elders on their last transfer, I have trained 3 elders (Technically I only trained one. The other two I was in a trio and I wasn´t technically the trainer. But I still count it :) ), and now Elder Ribeiro Gomes is going to train a new elder, thus making me a grandfather! How exciting, huh? 

In other news, I´m being transferred!!! I will spend the last 3 months of my mission in Uruguaiana - on the border of Brazil and Argentina! Although I will probably not be able to enter into Argentina because of border security. Close enough though. Right? It was actually a pretty big suprise, I thought I would stay one more transfer here. At Stake Conference President Parrela told the entire stake I needed to teach them piano so that when I left they would have a pianist. One week later, he transfers me! How am I supposed to teach piano now? Haha I guess the Lord has other plans for me. I will be serving in the Setembrino de Carvalho ward, which is a pretty humble area I´ve heard. I´ll spend Christmas there, so hopefully there will be members to take me in! Although I´m pretty set with all the Christmas packages you´ve sent me - I´m sure there´s enough food in there to sustent me until the end of the mission! Haha!

Anway, this past week I spent basically saying goodbye to everyone in the ward. Goodbye´s are like the worst thing in the world. It has been so great getting to know so many good people here, and I will never forget this ward. They were so great to me, took such good care of me, and I really grew to be great friends with all of them. It feels like they adopted me into the ward, so to suddenly have to leave is pretty heartbreaking. But the one thing that made it okay was the fact that I´ll be back in 3 months. Also, the fact of this little thing called the internet. I can´t even imagine how it must have been for missionaries 15+ years ago - how lucky we are! But anway, I am so grateful to have served here in the Ibirapuitã ward. I learned so many things from the members and investigators here. As I bore my testimony yesterday, and saw the few, but strong members that were there, I just felt such a strong love for each and everyone of them. Especially as I saw Julia and Marcos, each with their families and so happy to be there. This is truly what a mission is all about. As President Parrela told us at a Zone Conference - the three greatest things we can take from our missions - Our converts, our companions, and the importance of obedience. I truly have taken these three things out of this area, and more importantly, from my mission. There are two things that are eternal - our relationships and our knowledge. The rest will be left behind - so do everything in your power to strengthen your realationships and increase your knowledge! 

I love you all bunches! Merry Early Christmas!!!! Next week our P-Day was moved from Monday to Thursday so the next time we talk will be Christmas!!! Hope the preparations are special and remember - next year I´ll be right there with you!!! 

Love,

Elder Weight

Conference!

This week was quite a good one! I don´t have a lot of time left, so this´ll be kinda short but I´ll try to get you updated on everything! So on P-Day, we went to this rice farm outside of the city. It´s owned by a member and her non member husband, so they invited us to spend the day with him. I´ll send pictures next week, but it was really quite cool. They have this huge man made lake, and miles and miles of rice fields. He took us around in his tractor to give us a tour of the farm, showed us all his animals, showed us his guns - it felt like I was in America again! Haha guns aren´t quite a common thing here in Brazil. But it was a really fun day, and at the end we had a family night with them and began to teach her husband. He really liked us and the message and everything so we´ll see what happens!

We spend a lot of our time this week searching out inactive members with the ward roster. A lot of people on the list have moved, or died, or don´t even exist haha. So it leads to a lot of investigators living in the houses of these people which leads to lots of new families! We found a 11 year old girl that hasn´t been baptized yet whose parents are less active members. She´s already been to church a bunch and came to Stake Conference this weekend! So now we just have to teach and baptize! We also found a few other really good investigators so that´s great.

Conference was awesome this week! Elder Cruz, an area seventy presided and it was a really special conference. He´s a really great speaker, and gave some powerful, spiritual talks. The stake has been struggling a lot lately, and really needs a lot of help, so hopefully this conference woke up the members a little bit! If the frequency doesn´t get better soon, it looks like Alegrete might become a district, so we´ve got lots of work to do. Hopefully I can stay another transfer here to help out a little bit more, but who knows? A member invited one of his work buddies to the conference, and they came! We started conversing with them and found out they are legally married!!! It´s a miracle! They seem like a great family, and tonight we set up a family night with them and the member. A young woman of the ward also brought one of her friends who we´ll start teaching hopefully this week. So things are looking up! 

Shout out to Esther Olsen and the Foothill Ward beehives!!! Nothing beats some good ol American candy - especially those carmel apple pops! Thanks! I also got the ward newsletter, which was basically the highlight of my week. I love seeing all the updates in the ward! So thanks Brother and Sister Jensen!

Sorry this is so short, but I love you all! God loves you, don´t forget that. The gospel is the only thing that matters in this short life, and we have to make the most of every before we don´t have any left! I pray for you all every day, and can´t wait to see you again here in a little bit. Have a wonderful week, and send some of the cold weather down here! I´m already sick of 100 degree weather!!! 

Love,

Elder Weight 

December 1 Pics

Baptism of Marcos! 

Some of my favorite people in the world right now - Marcos, Graziele and Suehelen!

Awwwwww - They´re officially married!

We´re getting festive here in Alegrete!

I´m a true gaúcho now...

Weight and Pereira sang as they walked and walked and walked

And walked and walked and walked and walked and walked aaaaaaaaand walked. Seriously, I don´t think I´ve ever walked so much in my life. And it didn´t help that it was 95+ degrees all week. But with hard work, comes great rewards, and man was the reward great! Marcos and Graziele got married on Friday and Marcos was baptized on Saturday!!! Finally, right? I think I´ve been telling y'all about them for about 3 months now but it all went so well! We made cute little invites for them last week, and helped them deliver all of them to the ward members and their friends and family this week. We also had to go to the wedding registry with them to get the papers all ready and pay for everything, but it all worked out just great. There were about 80 people at the wedding, which was more than I expected. We found a suit for Marcos this week from a member, and he was looking pretty spiffy if you ask me. He was so happy, but so nervous as well haha. When he went to put the ring on her finger he dropped it and spent about 30 seconds on the floor trying to pick it up. It was pretty funny. It turned out great though, we had lots of fruit and salgadinhos (little salties, kinda like mini pastries) and soda and cake. Oh yeah, this was the thrid wedding I´ve played piano at, so that´s pretty cool i guess! I think I´m the offical Alegrete Stake Pianist, because I play every week in my ward and now they´ve asked me to play at Stake Conference this weekend. So thanks Mom, for forcing me through all those piano lessons cause it really payed off!!!

So then his baptism was on Saturday. He chose me to baptize me which was really special. I really think I was sent here to baptize him. I remember the first time I taught him I invited him to be baptized, and he said yes without hesitiation. I had a feeling at that moment I would be able to see his baptism, even with all the marraige complications. So for the big day to finally arrive was a special day for me. The baptism was very small and simple, but the spirit was very strong. Marcos has the most contagious smile, and he was just shining of happiness, it was wonderful. They truly are a special couple, and I can´t wait to see them go through the temple in one year! It will be a great day.

So other than that, nothing too exciting happened this week. Oh yeah! Thanksgiving! So we couldn´t really have a full on thanksgiving feast due to a lack of funds, time, and food options, but we did have our own little celebration! We bought some chickens (turkey is extremely expensive), mashed potatoes, rolls, juice and brownies and cooked it all up that night. We went around the table and talked of the things we are thankful for, just like Mom loves it. It wasn´t close to the same as being with the family, but it´s better than nothing right? And it´s the last one ever with out y'all!!! I was really missing the whole turkey bowl part haha!

I have to get going, but I love you all! Happy December!!! I´ll talk to you Monday!!!

Love,

Elder Weight

November Pics #2

   There´s nothing better than a southern brazillian churrasco. 

Elder Cotrim´s last visit with Julia :(

We like pizza. A little bit...especially with our matching zone shirts!

Dionatan and Daiane finally got married!!! 

We take selfies at weddings. 

Zona Alegrete! The best zone in the mish!

Summer. . .

It´s beginning to look a lot like...summer. Afraid to say that it seems as though winter has officialy gone away and summer has arrived. It was a good week, but it was a hot one. We´re hoping and praying for some rain this week, so we´ll see what happens! 

Anyway, we had a wonderful week! I did a division with Elder McArthur, my zone leader this week and it was pretty adventurous. We were walking in the street, and this old lady called us over from her house and asked for a pamphlet. We went into her house and pulled out the pamphlet of the restoration, but she said she already had it. I then just pulled out the next pamphlet in my folder and it turned out to be the law of chastity. She grabbed it out of my hand and said "Oooh a new one! Thanks!" Haha then we started teaching her and she began to tell us about how she re-wrote the book of Revalation, because she didn´t like how everyone died in the book, so she re translated it so that everyone lives. Then she showed us a painting she had of Noah´s ark and began to desribe how she likes the painting, but that she doesn´t like Noah, because he lived in Israel, and Israel keeps trying to destroy the world. It´s a miracle that Elder McArthur and I didn´t start laughing, cause we were both pretty close. Oh the joys of missionary work.

We spent a lot of time this week preparing for Marcos and Grazielle´s wedding this weekend. We made invites, found a suit, planned the food/decorations, taught him the rest of the lessons, went to the register´s office, and lots of other stuff, so we were pretty busy. But through all this, we were able to find a few new investigators to teach, including a kid named Leomir who is a friend of a less active in our ward. We are helping him come back to church, and we´re bringing his friend along with him! We´re also trying to help his parents get married, but first his dad has to divorce his first wife. But they finally got everything worked out, and January they will offically be divorced. I´m hoping I´m still here to help them with their wedding in January!!! Other than that, nothing too exciting happened! My companion is great, we´re working hard and NOT getting trunky!!! I´m happy with my life and everything is just grand. I continue to feel the spirit testify through me each and everyday, and I know without a doubt these things I teach are true. As I tell people everytime I bear my testimony - "I did not leave my family, studies, work, and friends just to hang out, learn a language and meet new people - I came because I know and I want everyone on this earth to know these things are true. I want everyone to have an eternal family just like me, because there is nothing that brings me more happiness than this.

I love you all! Have a wonderful Thansgiving! I´m so grateful to have each one of you in my life. I don´t know where I would be without y'all, and will be forever grateful for all you have done and continue to do for me. I miss you so incredibly much, but I´ll be home before you know it! 

Love,

Elder Weight

Julia's Baptism!

Staying in Alegrete

So first things first, I will be staying here in Alegrete for another transfer! I was really suprised and thought I would be transferred, because I´ve never stayed more than two transfers in one area. But I´m so glad I get to stay more time here! We have a lot of work to do, and a lot of people to baptize! Now the sad part: my companion will be transferred to Santa Maria to train. I thought for sure he would stay, so that was a huge suprise. But he is an amazing elder and will be an awesome trainer. It´ll be sad to say goodbye to him, but hopefully he´ll still be in Santa Maria when you come pick me up Mom and Dad!!!

So this week was wonderful. Julia was baptized on Saturday!!! It was one of the most spiritual baptisms I´ve ever seen, it was amazing. Her entire family came, her 4 brothers and sisters and parents who all live near Porto Alegre. They are such a great family, and it was so cool to see them all together. You can tell that each one of them has a testimony, but has fallen away from the church each for thier own reasons. Elder Cotrim baptized her, and afterward, she threw her arms around her neck and was so incredibly happy. We both bore our testimonies after the baptism, everyone full of tears, and then one of her brothers went up and talked about how not going on his mission was one of the worst decisions he has ever made in his life, but that he was so happy to be able to see his family completed and that he would do everything he could to get out on a mission. We ate lunch with them after the baptism, shared a bunch of laughs together, and I will never forget how happy I was that day, to see a family reunited at church and to see the most perfect little girl baptized. I wish you could all meet her, because she is the most adorable little thing ever. Sunday she asked me to confirm her, and it was yet another spiritual experience. I was crying throughout the entire sacrament meeting just thinking about how lucky I am to be serving a mission, to have these amazing experiences and to meet these wonderful people. I will never forget all of the things I have done and people I have met here and I am so incredibly grateful to my Heavenly Father to have given me the chance to be here. I love this church, I love this gospel, I love my family and I love my Father in Heaven. These truly are the only things that matter in this life, and everything else is just extra.

We had three other investigators at church as well, and hopefully all 3 will be baptized this month! One is for sure, Marcos on the 29th. Another, Maria Mafalda, is an old lady who needs to get married or move out, but she doesn´t want to get married so we´re trying to find a place for her to move. And the other is Marilene, her son is on a mission and she has never really shown interest in being baptized until this Sunday. She was really touched by everything and told us she would think and pray about being baptized before her son comes home so they can go to the temple when he gets back. It was quite amazing that she actually came and felt such a desire.

So that´s about the best part of my week. Yesterday I got sick out of nothing and almost passed out in the street, but I made it home, drank a lot of water and rested a bit. I´m feeling much better now and I´m ready for a new week, a new companion and new week! I can´t wait to dig in these last few transfers and see more miracles in my mission. I love you all so much and hope everything is well. Send some of those snow flurries down here, I´m dying of heat!!! Loves!!!

Love,

Elder Weight

October Pictures

We´ve now got 3 new cougar converts. One of them was even an ex-ute.

Festa de 15 of a member! She is the funniest girl I´ve ever met.

Family night!!!

Pancakes!!!

Yeah, this is what we call 6 elders in a taxi.

Zone P-Day!

Sicknesses...but with cookies and maple!

This was quite an interesting week, full of suprises. Elder McArthur got some intestinal disease from something he ate this week and was in bed basically the entire week. Then my companion also got sick, so I had a different companion basically everyday this week. It made things hard, cause I was basically teaching investigators in two different areas, so I didn´t have a lot of time to focus on all the people and potential investigators I am already teaching. But I was still able to have a great week!

So Julia is doing great, definitely one of the smartest girls I´ve met. We were teaching about the sacrament, and before we even explained anything, she ran into her room, grabbed a piece of paper and began to explain how baptism is like a contract we make with God. But sometimes we do bad things, so it´s like we rip the contract a little when we don´t do what´s right. She began to rip little pieces of the paper and then explained the sacrament is like restoring the contract to make it new again. Yeah, I´d say she understands the gospel. We´re hoping to baptize her on her birthday which is the 8th of November, but it might have to be later depending on her plans. 

Marcos is doing well, turns out it might take even LONGER for their wedding to work out, because of the marraige system here in the city. We´ll see for sure this week when is the soonest date they can be married, hopefully before the transfer. The catholic youth we have been teaching are doing well, they are reading and praying to find the truth of the book of mormon, but it´s looking like they like their own church and aren´t looking for anything else. But we met the boyfriend of one of them who is a really cool guy who is really interested to learn more. He always calls me sir, it makes me feel old haha. But we´ll see if it works out between the two of them.

This week we had two family nights with members and investigators which were awesome. At the first I made chocolate chip cookies, which were delicious, and everyone was dying over them. I´m probably gonna buy all the ingredients to make some for myself, cause they were so good. The second I made pancakes and maple syrup. The pancakes they make here are bascially the crepes we make there, they had never had the thick pancakes we eat there. They all loved the pancakes as well, although they said the maple was too sweet haha. But the members brought a new couple for us to teach, and we brought a few other investigators as well. It was awesome.

But other than that, there´s not much more news! My companion and I are getting along great. He is the first companion I have had that is showing an interest in american football, it´s great. He is officially a Chargers fan, and we usually spend our free time talking about the rules, players, teams and everything. Let me just say, I really miss football. That will be a bright part about coming home haha. But yeah, Elder Cotrim is a great missionary, a great person, and I will remember him for the rest of my life. He has a strong testimony and has really helped me to stay strong, even as I head to the final stretch of my mission. I feel the spirit with him every day and I really hope I get to stay longer with him!!!

I have to get going, but i love y'all! The church is true. God lives. Christ loves you. I love you. So have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Weight

Here´s a cool email I got from my boy Elder Fredrickson, assistant in the Alabama Birmingham mission:

Tuesday morning about 7:30 am I was looking to sit down and study when I found myself just staring at the transfer board and thinking about the missionaries. Saw a picture of Sister Carlson in Hamilton Alabama, and immediately thought about a woman named Diana that I had referred her to a year ago while serving in Vestavia Hills. 

To set the scene, Elder Weight, McGee, and I were on the 31 en route to the Wahler's house. When we stepped on we all instinctively found 3 separated empty seats in the bus and all talked to the folks aside us. Elder Weight and McGee were fabulous missionaries. 

As I started talking to this woman Diana, I quickly realized that she was very attentive and captivated. She was Hispanic and spoke perfect English. As I taught her about the Book of Mormon, she took the book from me and I moved on to a new victim.

By the end of our travel, she had read the entire intro and testimonies along with a few chapters of 1 Nephi. We referred her to the Hoover Sisters, and then didn't here from her again. We followed up with the missionaries every night in Hoover, no luck. Dag nab. 

Fast forward to this week 15 months later. I knock on her door now serving in Hoover, with Elder Savage on exchange. She smiles at our sight and we set up a return appointment. We bring Kristina (another investigator set to be baptized April 2015 bc of some parent probs) both previously Catholic. 

In tears, Diana expresses to me that 15 months ago on that bus, 30 seconds before meeting us she had prayed "for guidance". Since that time she had lost the book in a move, and had 5 friends attempt to give her spiritual guidance. She recognized us as an answer to prayers. And is set to be baptized. 

Conference, cow tongue, and baptisms!

Another great week for me! We had zone conference on Tuesday, so there were missionaries from 3 other zones in the city. It was really great to see some old friends. But it also helped me realized how old I am in the mission, cause basically all the people I new are home or going home. I didn´t recognized like half the people there, it was strange. Although the fact that I served in Alabama for 8 months probably helps with that haha. So the conference was great and afterward there was a baptism of a young man of the sisters in our district, and there were 60 missionaries there to watch the baptism, it was pretty amazing. The biggest attendance of a baptism I´ve seen!

So later in the week, we did another division with the zone leaders, and I went to their area with Elder Mcarthur. We show up at lunch, and there was this weird meat the member had prepared. It was really chewy and had a strange taste, but I didn´t think much of it until the member told me it was cow tongue. So that was an exciting...no that´s not the right word. Lets say...an alarming discovery. Haha, but the exchange was great, and at the end we had an awesome dinner at a recent convert´s house when it started to storm really bad. The sky was basically flashing every second from every direction with lightning, it was really cool to watch. I guess it happens quite often here, which is interesting cause in Utah it´s like one lightning strike every 30 minutes haha. 

Anyway, this week we taught a bunch of people. We have the family of Catholics who are reading the book of mormon and really searching for an answer. They always feed us to death, and this Sunday they´re gonna give us a churrasco, it´s a pretty good deal. We taught Julia, the little girl we found at the churro stand and she is so incredibly smart. We taught the plan of salvation, and she started crying as we taught about the Atonement, the spirit was so strong, it was aamzing. She came to church with her mom for the first time as well, and loved it. We´re hoping to baptize her before the end of the transfer, but she´s so busy, it might have to be afterward. We are also teaching the wife of the second counselor in our ward who is not a member, and before she was completely closed off, but now she loves it when we teach and is talking about baptism and everything. What a miracle. Marcos will come back this week, so this weekend should be the marraige and baptism, if everything works out. Really hoping it does! But things just keep getting better, me and my comp are getting along great, he´s awesome. Everythings just peachy :)

So now my spiritual experience of the week. We were going to teach an investigator, but we stopped by a members house first to see if she wanted to teach with us. Usually she is the happiest person you can think of, but we walked in and could tell something was wrong. She was all sad and depressed, so we began talking to her to find out what happened. She told us she had her final test after a 10 year battle with cancer, and found out she had finally won the sickness, but that she would never be able to have children. I had absolutely no idea what to tell her, so we just sat in silence and let her cry. Then we offered her a blessing, and she asked me to do it. I have never really been great at giving blessings in portuguese, and i still didn´t say everything right in this blessing, but i really did feel that the words i said came from God, and although the words weren´t really all that special, yesterday she told me that we had saved her and that after that day, her week had improved 100 percent. She is one of the favorite persons I have met here, and I know God sent me here for a reason. Not just to teach all these people, but to save her from the depths of despair. I just love my mission so much, I feel like I have finally hit my stride. I am speaking fluently, helping people to learn the truth, and most importantly, learning how to feel the spirit. It´s the greatest.

Love you all so much!! Have a wonderful week. Talk to you again monday.

Love,

Elder Weight

Hey, God is real!

I had quite a special week this week! Many miracles have been hapening and it´s so cool to see. At the beginning of the week, I did a division with Elder Nascimento, one of the zone leaders here. He speaks english fluently so it was quite enjoyable to finally speak a bit of engish haha! We taught some great lessons and had a lot of fun together. Then I got back together with my comp and we taught the wife of the second counselor in our ward who is not a member. She has been having lots of problems with depression, and was actually in Porto Alegre for 3 weeks for treatment. We have been teaching her for awhile now, but she never displayed much interest. But we had a really spiritual lesson with her and she began to cry which she had never done before. Before she just completely ignored us, but something got to her this lesson and now she has been showing more interest. It was an awesome experience. Later we taught the little girl we met at the churro stand. Her name is Julia and she has got to be one of the smartest little girls I have ever met. We met her parents as well, who are amazing people. They are both members, who have fallen away from the church. They told us they still have strong testimony´s of the church and that they will return at the right moment, but the most important part to help them would be to teach Julia. So we began teaching her, and she began to tell us she had a friend at school who lost her parents. She told us she began praying, asking God why he would allow this to happen and for him to send her answers. A few days later, we ran into them at the churro stand. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and joseph smith, and gave her a hard cover copy of the Book of Mormon, and she got so happy. She told us she was going to read the entire thing before we came back. She is such a special little girl, and I felt the spirit so strong as I taught her. After the lesson she began to converse politics with us and who she would vote for and why. It was adorable.

Afterward, we visited that other family we ran into by accident looking for the drunk guy last week. We show up and she just starts feeding us a bunch of food. Then it turns out her dauther is the leader of the catholic youth in the area, and they were planning to have a meeting at her house. We played the mormon message that shows an earthly father and compares it to our heavenly father, and the father of the family was crying at the end of it. We shared a message with everyone that was there and invited them all to church. They all seemed pretty interested even being part of the catholic youth group. So basically we´re gonna convert all the youth of the catholic church, it´s no big deal. Haha but we have a family night with all of them, it should be great. To top it all of, that night we had a baptism! Well technically it wasn´t ours. But about a month ago, a member from our ward brought one of her friends to church. We began to teach him, but turns out he lives in the other ward, so we had to pass him to the other elders. But he got baptized this week and asked us to watch. It was a sweet little baptism, and he is the man. He is definitely an example of the elect that are lost, just because they don´t know where to find the truth. 

Church was great, but had few people. This ward has been having some difficulties lately, and it seems like we work so hard and then no one shows up to church. It´s frustrating at times, and during sacrament meeting I was kinda sad. But during the last hymn, Where can I turn for peace, I felt the spirit so strong telling me things would get better, and that God is proud of what I am doing. That very day we found a new investigator with lots of potential, found out one of our investigators wants to move out of her house which would solve the problem of her not being married to her boyfriend she doesn´t even like and then we had an awesome family night. Then I get online today, and see an email from Rick and Jody, a couple from Huntsville Alabama. They got married and Jody was baptized the last week before I left for Brazil. Now they will be sealed in the temple in December. I could not believe my eyes as I read that email. God truly does know me and brought be comfort when I needed it most. These entire two years are all worth it, just for the chance to help a couple be sealed for all time and eternity. I am so grateful for my mission and for all the valuable lessons I continue to learn. I know that God lives and that he loves each and every one of you. He answers prayers, and still works miracles in our lives today. I miss all of you so much, but I know the work I am doing here will have a lasting impact, even if I don´t see the results. I can´t believe how quickly my mission is already ending and I want to make the best of these last few months. I´m so excited to get to work again this week and I will talk to you all Monday!

Love,

Elder Weight

Miracles & Conference

I´m offically not a sister missionary anymore! Woohoo! A year and a half passed by so quickly and i can´t believe Christmas is in two months cause after Christmas 'já era.' - a portuguese prase which translates to 'already was' which basically means 'you´re done for.' I am honestly not anticipating that day cause I know I´ll miss my mission a whole lot. So let´s not think about that and talk about mission stuffs!

This week was awesome!!! My companion and I are seeing so many miracles together, it´s amazing. People are appearing out of nowhere for us to teach and I know it´s the Lord placing these people in our path. We taught a former investigator, Maria last week who came to church. This week we went back and found her husband and granddaughter with her and taught all three of them. We showed the Restoration video about Joseph Smith and they accepted the baptismal challenge. Only problem is that she needs to pay a bunch of money to get divorced and thn they have to get married...but i think we´ll be able to work it out. She came to conference this weekend all alone and loved it! We´ll have to focus on her husband this week to get the entire family to come to church, but things are going great with her! Marcos came back for a few days, so we taught him basically everything else he needs to know, so when he comes back they´ll get married and he´ll get baptized right away. He is awesome and so excited to be baptized. We´re thinking he´ll be back about the 20th, so on the 25th he´ll be baptized. Another cool experience - we were headed home after the second session of conference on Saturday and we stopped to buy some churros. You know I can´t pass up an opportunity to eat churros. And here they fill the churros with chocolate, it´s delicious. Anyway... there was this lady in her car close by, and she began talking to us. Turns out she´s an inactive member of our ward, and her daughter in the back seat just turned 9 and she was wanting to come back to church and baptize her daughter. Yeah, we couldn´t believe it either. But it gets better. The lady selling churros is ALSO an inactive member with an 11 year old son and husband who are not baptized either. She lives in another ward, but we marked an appointment for the other elders. "There can be miracles, when you believe!" Haha it really is true though. I have learned on my mission that conincedences truly don´t exist and God really does lead his work.

What did y'all think about conference? I thought it was great. I wasn´t allowed to watch in english for who knows why, but I downloaded it all onto my phone today, so i´ll listen at home. But I thought Pres. Ucthdorf´s talk about recieveing light and truth was really cool. He gave the four steps to recieve an answer of God, and my favorite was the last one - Live the commandment and do his will, then God will reveal the truth to you. John 7:17 Do his will and you will know of the doctrine - if it be from God or from man. So my invite to all of you is to live what the prophets and apostles taught us this week! Do the test and see what happens, and I promise God will reveal the truth of all things - through your thoughts and feelings and through the holy ghost. For the fruits of the spirit are peace, joy, love, faith, kindness, temperance, long suffering...i don´t remember everything (galatians 5: 22). But basically everything that is good! I know the gospel is true and I know that Thomas Monson is a prophet of the living God. Read and re read his talks, because it is direct revalation from God to us. 

Some other talks i thought were great were from christofferson about justice and grace, from anderson about joseph smith, from godoy not just because it was in portuguese, but it was a great talk and from Holland of course. Really it was all amazing, but I´m excited to get the full effect in english :)

I love you all and miss you so much! Have a wonderful week and I will talk to you again Monday.

Love,

Elder Weight